“You’re being released, Miss Stanton,” the guard announced as he approached Sam’s cell. “You can thank Officer Alonzo Breedlove for stickin’ his neck out for you.”
Bernadette and Alonzo would be getting the thank-you gift of a lifetime. Sam debated between planting them an herb garden or gifting them with a mountain of Fido’s manure. Either would certainly be chronicled in the annals of Best Gift Ever!
It had only been two days behind bars, but it felt like forty-eight hours. Each minute tick-tick-ticked slowly down to some terrible fate Sam anticipated with horror, as she kept one eye on her crafty long-fingernailed bunkmate carving a shiv out of the soap bar, and the other eye on the cell door, hoping a guard could hear her screams when her bunkmate finished whittling and murdered her in the cleanest stabbing in history.
The keys rattled in the lock as the guard grabbed and pulled open the cell door. Sam bid her roommate good luck with the soap knife sculpture and nearly ran into the guard’s bulky arms.
Side by side, the guard thundered and Sam tiptoed down the long corridor passing rows of jail cells where inmates eyed her with jealous disdain. As they neared the end and stepped into the release processing room, Sam felt close enough to the exit to dare ask why they were letting her go.
“Cook Pharmaceuticals dropped their charges against you,” he said. “Apparently Thomas Cook grew a conscience and decided to retract his statement.”
Sam couldn’t help but wonder why. A man of his power and influence didn’t just wake up one day with an angel on his shoulder where the devil used to live.
“And between you and me, they were unfounded allegations. You might have taken the ledger as evidence of a crime, but faking an entire accounting book full of doctor’s names, drug abbreviations, and transactions? It’s too easy to prove with one look into Cook’s accounting.”
“Thank you, sir. Finally someone gets it!” Sam exclaimed.
“There’s no way any jury would buy their lies or want to punish you for exposing their death toll due to their criminal practices. I hope you take Thomas Cook and his evil empire down.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m done with that battle. I think it’s best I retire and go back to being a typist.”
The guard stopped dead in his tracks, turning Sam around by her arm. “Why are you giving up?”
“Because I’m not who everyone thinks I am. I thought I was helping people, but it turns out I’m responsible for my father’s death—not Thomas Cook. I blamed him when it wasn’t his fault.”
“Oh, the grapefruit, huh?” The guard frowned empathetically.
“You heard about it too? Is there nothing private about my life anymore?”
He rested his meaty palms on Sam’s narrow shoulders where the itchy gray prison uniform rubbed her skin raw.
“Maybe your dad was part of that 3% of grapefruit-related deaths, but there are still 97% of them who weren’t—those who died due to medicinal complications are the ones you are fighting for.”
Sam pressed her lips defiantly. “Were fighting for. Past tense.”
“Cook deserves payback for what he did, and you’re the only one who can do it. What else can you possibly lose?”
“Not much,” Sam hated to admit.
“Even my physician brother wants to see you succeed.”
“A physician who actually agrees with me?” After all of the negative publicity, Sam had assumed every doctor hated her almost as much as Thomas Cook did.
“Sure. There are plenty of doctors who promote healthy lifestyles for their patients, only suggesting medication when appropriate and necessary. Not all of them throw a prescription at every malady, or are on Cook’s payroll. All of us are rooting for you. Don’t give up on your message… or your column.”
“You know about my column?”
“Of course. I have every copy of the last ten issues since you started writing.”
“Wow, tell your wife thank you for reading my column.”
“Wife? No, I’m not married.”
“Wait—you read my column?” Sam asked, surprised that any man other than Raul, let alone a single, giant, muscly one at that, cared what Women’s House Magazine had to say about anything.
“You’ve got fans of all kinds, Miss Stanton. Don’t assume all men are women-hating jerks out to get you. Just like not all doctors are pill-distributing sell-outs, and not all prison guards think their inmate wards are guilty. Some of us actually want to support the work you’re doing in the name of women’s progress.”
“I write about health, sir, not women’s rights.”
He laughed at that, his belly jiggling. “You actually believe that’s all you’re doing?”
“Yes, offering alternative medicine and general advice.”
“Oh, Miss Stanton, if only you knew! You’re giving readers much more than that. For the first time in a long time, someone is prescribing hope. Don’t you see what you’re actually doing?”
It was four months later when her best friend asked her the same exact question after Sam had gotten herself stuck in the biggest heap of trouble she’d ever stepped in.
